


The Witch and the Warrior

by carrionqueen (nightquill), nightquill



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alexandra Amell, Gen, Headcanon, Isobel Cousland - Freeform, Multiple Wardens AU, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-16
Updated: 2013-03-16
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:47:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/722192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquill/pseuds/carrionqueen, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightquill/pseuds/nightquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The tale of two Wardens - Alexandra Amell and Isobel Cousland. A sort-of novelisation of my Dragon Age: Origins headcanon and how the two stories intertwine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The burning in her gut would not subside. It was hot, sticky; her skin was slick with sweat and darkened by bulging veins. She would be dead by sunrise, or worse… she would live on as a ghoul. For perhaps the seventh time she fell to her knees and retched, fingers digging into the grass as she spat out barely a mouthful of bile. There was nothing inside her to vomit. Every splinter of her breaking body was aflame.  
  
Howe. Howe. Howe. The name pounded in time to her heart as she forced herself to her knees. It drove her, pushed her toward the forest and further south. She had to find Fergus. She had to… “Bran,” she called quietly, her Mabari sniffing at her palm anxiously. He growled. The scent of her was beginning to change. With a raw yell, she gripped her hound by the scruff of his neck and used him as a crutch to rise once more to her feet. This blighted Darkspawn poison would not take her. It would never take her.  
  
The sky began to colour with the palest wash of pink as she staggered from the other side of the woods. Her hound kept close, catching her arm when she stumbled and nudging her rear with his head when she paused to catch her breath. He could sense her urgency, and he knew the danger of her new scent. The sun touched her skin and… and she was alive. No ghoul, no corpse lost to the woods. Alive. She felt her lips break into a smile. One foot in front of the other. All she had to do now was make it to a road.  
  
  
*  
  
  
“Isobel,” The low voice woke her. A swarthy hand was at her temple and dark eyes, full of concern, above her. She opened her mouth to speak but was instantly shushed. “Relax, young one. My name is Duncan, and you are very ill.” Duncan. He’d been due to arrive at Highever in a few weeks… Something about Grey Wardens, or the war, or... Her mind refused to focus so she let her eyes slide shut once more. She simply nodded to acknowledge his words.  
  
“How do you know my name?” She wheezed, her whole chest burning in protest. Duncan’s hand squeezed her shoulder as she coughed, and he wiped the spittle from her lips.  
  
“Isobel Cousland, second child of Bryce Cousland, and the young warrior I was coming to Highever to conscript. Your gear was stamped with enough Highever sigils for anyone to have picked you out. Not that anyone but a Warden would have come this close to you,” she could hear the smirk in his voice, and felt her lips curving into a smile of their own. “You are infected with the Blight. In a few days, you will die.”  
  
You will die. So final, so absolute. If she could speak, she’d have argued, but her body seized and she was wracked with coughs once more. “No,” she managed to choke out between the spasms, but Duncan pushed her back onto the stretcher once again.  
  
“I told you to be quiet,” he reminded her firmly, and she forcibly steadied her breathing. “And, I’m afraid, there is nothing to be done for the Blight in you. Your death is, regrettably, non-negotiable.” He smoothed her hair aside. Slowly, she began to register more of her circumstance. She was on a canvas camp bed, the sort used in field infirmaries. Her arms and torso were heavily dressed, and the air around her reeked of rot and elfroot. The crackle of a fire and the cool air marked them as outdoors. Her eyes were refusing to open but she reasoned it was dusk. Creaking leather, a quiet, female humming, and the steady breathing of Bran told her that she was not alone with this Duncan. She wanted to ask. She wanted to know more. She was dying. Surely he would indulge the curiosities of a dying woman.  
  
“Duncan,” she whispered. “Where are we? Do you know – do you know about Highever? Fergus, has he passed…”  
  
“Quiet. You are stubborn,” he muttered, a note of amusement in his voice. She heard him shift and sit on the ground beside her, and she heard Bran huff his approval as he edged closer to the Warden. “But I will answer your questions. We are in the Bannorn. We found you south of Highever, surrounded by Genlock corpses. Your hound was guarding you fiercely,”  
  
Bran whined and his stumpy tail waggled furiously against something. Isobel felt herself smiling again.  
  
“Now we head south, to Ostagar, where the King plans to stage his final assault.”  
  
“My brother,”  
  
“Patience! My, you are going to make an excellent Warden,” he muttered again, but before Isobel could query he continued. “News of Highever has travelled slowly, thanks to Howe’s rather efficient purge of the keep. They are rumours, nothing more – but when I saw you by the side of the road, the rumours were confirmed. Fergus has not passed this way, no, but I am certain we will catch up with him at Ostagar. You can tell him the news yourself.”  
  
Isobel’s eyes opened again, two wet river-stones. “You said I was dying.”  
  
“So you are.”  
  
“But,”  
  
“Patience. There is a cure, though the cost is high. Assuming you make it to Ostagar, I fully intend to administer that cure.”  
  
Isobel nodded silently. She still didn’t understand, but she wasn’t alone now. Someone else knew of Howe’s treachery, and Bran seemed to like him. At least her hound would be looked after if she passed. She was hardly at peace with the idea of dying but it didn’t seem so terrible now that she knew that Howe would pay.  
  
“Soup’s up, Duncan,” the female voice, the one who’d been humming earlier, rang low through the camp. She had hints of an accent, low notes to her voice that melted into Isobel’s aching head like exotic Antivan chocolate or Rivaini spices. “Will Lady Cousland be joining us?”  
  
Duncan shifted and got to his feet. “Not for this meal.”  
  
   
  
*  
  
  
Alexandra sat by the Mabari as the second watch dragged by. Isobel was sleeping quietly, but her wounds were grave, and her skin greying at the edges. The Mage had done what she could, probing Isobel’s body to seek out and slow the infection. It was not enough, of course, but without magic the woman would already be dead, or worse.  
  
Cold breeze blew strands of hair across her cheek and even though it was bitter, even though the night was horribly dreary, she couldn’t help but smile. As she looked up the stars glistened like scales on a cosmic fish. The looming pines were friendly sentinels, watching the campsite with her. The walls of the Circle Tower had been harsh, and the courtyards so sheltered not a breeze would touch her, not even on the windiest of nights. She remembered the Free Marches. Jagged coastlines had whipped with bitter winds in early spring, the rocks in the bays black teeth of some ancient beast. She had spent so little time there as a child but the wind, and the subsequent shipwrecks, had stayed with her.  
  
And so had the ghosts. She felt her lip curl in revulsion at the memories that haunted her, the Templars crashing around her and the broken body of her lover at their feet. She would never shake that memory. It was a shame it was so intrinsically tied with the fonder memories of her childhood, despite the substantial time gap.  
  
The grey-green of the pre-dawn sky began to feather through the firs. Duncan snored himself awake and sat up with a jolt. Alex hid her smile. He stretched a little before getting to his feet and prowling toward the girls; a large, but impossibly silent cat. He knelt by Isobel.  
  
“She is not looking well,” he breathed, less than a whisper, but still enough to wake the Mabari – Bran, the girl had called him. He checked the dressings on her wounds. The smell as he lifted the bandage turned Alex’s stomach. Darkspawn… There was nothing like that smell. Rust and rot and the sickly sweetness of death, a cloying smell, thick and musty as a crypt only not quite so bearable… she swallowed, clamping her tongue to the roof of her mouth so that she would not accidently taste it. Surely this girl was dead already. No one could bleed that much, or rot that badly and live.  
  
“I’ve done all I can,” Alex whispered to no one in particular. Duncan was swabbing wounds with a solution of elfroot and witch-hazel. Bran whined quietly, pawing at his nose – the smell upset him too, apparently.  
“We have to get her on a horse. We’re running out of time.” Duncan’s low voice had an edge of worry.  
  
“Why not leave her?”  
  
The Warden looked at her in silence as he tied the final knot in Isobel’s bandage. “Leave her?”  
  
“She’s a liability. Aren’t Grey Wardens supposed to stop the Blight? At all costs?”  
  
Duncan’s smile was joyless, a wry twist of his mouth. “Of course. But this one will make a good Warden if we can save her, so save her we shall. Here,” he thrust a small hatchet into Alex’s hands. “Go and cut me two saplings, no thicker than your wrist.”  
  
Alex shot him a sour glance as she got to her feet, the Mabari trailing along behind her as she wandered off into the dark of the woods. If I am made a Warden, she mused, I won’t be so soft on strangers. The Blight won’t wait for compassion.


	2. Chapter 2

She woke again, this time to the fire on her tongue. Acid, even, or molten lead – a hand gripped her chin firmly as the vile liquid was poured down her throat. Her eyes refused to focus but through the mist of her wretched disease she made out figures, a dozen or so people standing in a circle around her. Bran’s bark tugged at her attentions for a moment but the hand gripping her squeezed, threatening to pop her jaw loose if she turned even a little. The last of the liquid was poured into her, and she lost herself to a violent splutter before falling back into darkness.   
If only it had remained darkness. The dreams that took her were vivid, the most horrendous things she had ever faced – the smell of Darkspawn in her nose, that sweet rot met with rust; the longing in her gut to join them, to wade in their filth and follow their mindless paths in the Deep Roads, to dig, to seek, to find – 

*

Alex didn’t feel any different. She would never forget the taste of blood on her tongue, or the burning as it went into her and filled her whole body, but she didn’t… feel it. Alistair had said he’d felt the same straight after his Joining. A sort of disappointed numbness. She was glad they didn’t all die. Isobel and six others had made it through the trial, even though she wasn’t quite sure why Duncan had insisted on dragging the Cousland girl’s corpse on a litter all the way to Ostagar. They hadn’t even found her brother and now, even though she was Joined, she still had weeks of recovery before she was going to be useful to them. 

Alistair had said that Duncan had an eye for recruits, but Alex was pretty sure this was just his way of talking himself up. She didn’t mind the fellow – even though he was a Templar – and she kind of liked his irreverence. It complimented hers quite nicely. He sat by her at the Warden’s fire. 

“I never saw you at the Circle,”

“I bet you did. I bet you didn’t even realise who I was – just some sheep to keep in her pen,” she teased. He put on a hurt look and she snickered at him. Their dynamic was pleasing, and Duncan watched them with a frustratingly knowing smile. 

“But seriously – were you a late-comer to our lovely Kinloch Hold?”

Alex nodded, grabbing for the wine-skin Duncan was passing over to her. “I was an apostate until I was twenty.” She mumbled around a mouthful of coarse bread, and Alistair just sort of nodded. She decided it meant, ‘continue’. “They caught me in Orlais. I got cocky, really, my own fault. But Ela…” she dropped the sentence like it was a hot coal. She hadn’t meant to say that, not yet, not here – 

“Who’s Ela?” Alistair asked, all blindly blundering fool that he was. She got to her feet and dusted her hands on the seat of her pants. 

“No one. I’m going to check on Isobel and Bran,” she remarked to no-one in particular, and let Alistair dwell on where he’d gone wrong. With luck he wouldn’t bring that up again. 

*

Isobel thought she heard Fergus’ voice. She smiled as she woke, eyes still shut, supposing he was back from the war. In a moment, Mother would send the servants with a tray of tea for her – she really should get out of bed and slip on some clothing, but it was just so toasty under the blanket…

“Helloooo? Can you hear me, itty bitty Warden?” 

Warden?

She clenched her eyes tight in refusal before forcing them open. She was outside. She was… Not in Highever. Her stomach clenched as it flooded back to her, every memory, every shriek and cry as Howe’s men butchered hers, as they slaughtered the servants, her mother’s ladies, little Oren… She hauled herself over the edge of the cot and vomited onto the grass. 

“Oh, yack. Sorry. Hungover? I didn’t mean to irk you. I’m Alistair, and Duncan’s tasked me with waking you up and getting you rehabilitated. You can’t fight Darkspawn if your legs aren’t working,” the voice was offensively cheerful. Isobel wiped her mouth on the back of her hand – which was heavily bandaged, she noticed – and hoisted herself up to sitting position. She avoided the pool of blood-coloured vomit. Bran, however, did not, and sniffed at it, intrigued. 

“Maker above! Bran, don’t, that’s disgusting,” Isobel snapped, swatting at her Mabari, who slunk around to her other side. “I swear, you’re the vilest thing,” she chastised, but her tone was affectionate. She gripped her hound by the scruff of his neck, massaging the skin between her fingers the way he liked. He groaned and leant into her. Isobel looked up to find this Alistair figure. 

He was sitting opposite her, a ruddy face and a shock of red-gold hair; a strong nose and kind eyes. He reminded her of someone she used to know. “You’re not looking too well. Water? Bread? There’s not a lot else around here I’m afraid, the chirurgeons have used all the wine in cleaning your wounds and whatnot.” He held out a plate of bread and cheese, which her hands seemed to grab of their own volition. He smirked as she broke of a chunk of the loaf and stuffed it into her mouth in the most unladylike fashion. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” she confirmed when she had swallowed the mouthful, hiding her mouth behind her hand. “Dear Andraste, I have never had bread taste this good before,” she remarked and took another bite, this time a little more manageable. “What did you say your name was? Alistair? You look like someone.”

“Ahh, er, yes. Probably. I’m fairly nondescript actually, so I probably look like everyone. How’re the ol’ wounds going? Are they healing nicely?” He reached forward to fiddle with one of the bandages on her upper arm. She recognised his evasion tactics and decided to let it drop. 

“They’re doing okay, I guess. I’ve only just woken up, remember? You called me a Warden before. Is that… is that what happened? With the burning drink and the circle of people? I… Don’t really remember it that well,” Isobel admitted sheepishly. “Am I supposed to?”

“Maker, no,” Alistair chuckled as he readjusted her bandage, sitting back on the cot opposite hers. “It’s not something you want to remember. Trust me on that one.” He fiddled with the coarse woollen blanket he was sitting on, letting Isobel finish her meal. It seemed to steady her stomach because as soon as it was done, she set the plate down and tried to stand. “Woah. Hold up, you don’t want to put too much pressure on your –“

But she was up, using Bran as her crutch again. He stoically bore her weight, constantly checking to see if she needed him to move. With a hiss, she slowly eased her weight from one leg to another, feeling the tension of what was possibly stitches on her upper thigh and ankle. She’d taken a beating. Bran growled low in his throat the moment Alistair stood. It wasn’t a threat, more of a warning – but Alistair didn’t move any further. “Have you seen the any bannermen from Highever?” Isobel asked him, her face a calm mask. “My brother, Fergus – he needs to know of Arl Howe’s treachery.”

“The men from Highever are scouting the Wilds, from what Duncan mentioned, but you can relax. We told the King, and he said he’d turn his army around and march north as soon as this battle was done.” Alistair was grinning sunnily, as though that made everything better. She made to take a step toward him but grimaced in pain, stumbling on her bruised legs. 

“Howe killed my parents, you tit,” she grunted as he caught her. 

“Tit? That’s not very nice. Next time I’ll drop you,” he quipped dryly. 

“Then the next time, my dog will have your balls,” she growled through clenched teeth as he helped her back to standing. “Who are you, anyway? Are you a Warden?”

“Aye. One of the newer recruits, well, from the batch before you lot anyway. Duncan says I have ‘people skills’,” he made quotation marks in the air as he spoke, drawing a smirk from Isobel’s lips. “Though I’m not sure many can attest to that. Here. Do you need help?”

“I’ll manage,” she replied curtly. “Is there a Master of Hounds here? I need a harness for my dog. And where is my armour?”

Alistair kind of stared at her for a moment before reacting. “Why? Do you plan on going out a-hunting? In your condition?”

“Please stop talking and find me my things. I need to see the King.”

The Warden scoffed. “You can’t just… see the King, you know.”

“Actually, I can. Get me my things.” She snapped this time, and it was not gentle. Bran must have felt her mood change for he bristled beneath her fingertips, the growl coming from somewhere in his chest. Alistair scowled at the beast a moment. 

“I’m not your page, you know.”

“Then I’ll get it myself.”

She started off in what was probably the wrong direction, Bran walking slowly at her side to brace her limping gait. She could hear the ring of a smith’s hammer in the area so she followed the sound, Alistair slowly shadowing her as she walked. 

*

“I will not be treated like a child, Cailan,” Isobel snarled, limping back and forth inside the King’s own tent. The luxury here sickened her – Antivan carpets, hanging tapestries, a case of wine for the King’s pleasure, an actual real bed that had been carted across Ferelden just so her precious liege lord could get a good night’s sleep. She revelled in his look of distaste as her hound rubbed his dirty paws all over the rugs on the floor. “King or no, your father was a friend to mine. Don’t tell me these placating lies and expect me to just take them with a thank-you and a curtsey!”

Cailan ran his perfectly manicured hand through his perfectly manicured hair. Fergus would never have allowed such decadence on the field of battle, she thought, as her lips pressed into a tight line. “Isobel, my father is long gone, as is any debt he owed to your family.” The words were bitter on his lips as he poured himself a cup of wine. He offered her none. A King should be the image of courtesy, she thought with a frown. Cailan continued. “That said, a King can’t have his bannermen running around annexing other noble’s teyrnrhyns. As I have said, I’ll handle Rendon Howe when this battle is done.”

“Will you have him marshalled? Will you take away his arling the way he took mine? Or will you administer the usual – a slap on the wrist and a firm ‘no’, and hope he doesn’t do it again?”

“Your lands, are they? What about Fergus?” Cailan mused. His eyes were teasing but Isobel was in no mood for jokes. “I believe he is next in the Cousland line of succession. But I suppose I could be persuaded to skip him,” his eyes lingered on her, though for the life of her she couldn’t say why. She was clad in armour and what was visible of her was bandaged so tightly there was hardly anything to gaze upon. 

“With all due… respect, Sire,” she fought the urge to release her grip on Bran’s harness. He scented the King’s intentions and was begging to have a bite. “No. Fergus is the rightful Teyrn of Highever. All I want is your word that you will not go easy on him. The man is a serpent,” she refrained from spitting on the King’s pretty Antivan rugs, but mentally she was drowning Howe in a chamber-pot. 

Cailan looked her over once more, eyes settling at her hips. “A shame. Well, I can promise you it will be more than a slap on the wrist. Perhaps when you’ve recovered from your injuries, we can… talk about how much more,” 

Isobel felt slimy all over, but she said her pleasentries, bowed curtly and exited the tent. It was dark now – she’d waited all day to see her blasted monarch, and now she felt like she needed to bathe for a week. There was no missing his implications, especially not when two bawdy elven women were rounded into the tent not moments after her departure. Her heart ached for Anora. 

She settled herself carefully on a bench by the Warden’s fire, toward the edge of the circle and away from the cheerful banter. She had been asleep two days after the Joining, and all the bonding seemed to have taken place then. She had Bran, she supposed, and Alistair – not that she wanted him, but he came and sat by her anyway. 

“Here she is. How’d your little chat with our royal Kinglyness go?”

“As well as it could have, I suppose. Cailan’s a tit.”

“You’re over-fond of that word,” remarked the Warden with a grin. “There’s food and wine on the other side of the fire. Alex is over there too.” Isobel looked at him blankly. “Oh, right. You would have been unconscious. Alex is the mage who halted your infection long enough for you to get your cure – she rode in with you and Duncan,” he explained with a gesture through the flames. Isobel followed his point and her eyes landed on a dark woman, probably Antivan, clad in black and hooded in yellow. The woman met her eyes and nodded, just once, curtly – acknowledgement of Isobel’s unspoken thanks. Isobel smiled quietly and looked away. 

“I suppose I should get some food. You uhm… Haven’t heard from Fergus, have you?” She asked quietly, but Alistair wasn’t listening. He was humming some folk song and staring off into the flames.


	3. Chapter 3

Dawn came – the day of the battle. The entire camp was positively humming with excitement, men running to and fro, servants fetching swords and armour and Ash Warriors jogging their hounds about to keep them exercised. Alex loved it. It reminded her, in some small way, of Antiva City, or Starkhaven, or even Kirkwall, those few times she’d stolen away to Lowtown as a child. She felt swept up in the busyness of it all, like life was happening around her, catching her like a leaf on the wind and tossing her about. Not like the Circle. There, the breathless, cloying scent of book and the pure stasis of the place had crushed her, pushing in from all sides until she threatened to explode. She thanked Jowan daily for the chance he’d given her, the chance to be free. She wondered what had happened to him. 

She found Isobel kneeling before the Revered Mother, along with dozens of other soldiers, heads bowed in benediction. With a smirk she pulled her draped robes closer to her body and leant against a tree, waiting. She had no intention of bowing to anyone, not ever again. 

Isobel’s faith in the Maker and his bride was sort of touching, but not something Alexandra could relate to. She’d been chased from her home as a child, chased across the Free Marches, through Antiva, and all the way out to the Rivaini peninsula by men who claimed to serve the Maker. The Maker, who made all things, who somehow forgot to unmake her magic? She doubted it. There may have been a time where she believed in such things, but those beliefs died when a man bearing the Chantry’s flames on his breastplate shoved a sword through her lover’s chest. 

“Alex,” a woman’s voice dragged her out of her thoughts. “Were you at prayer too? I didn’t see you when I arrived.”

Alex glanced to the source – it was Isobel, and the Revered Mother’s sermon was done. “No. I… the Maker and I have a rather fragile relationship,” she teased, and left it at that. “I wanted to come and actually introduce myself, but it seems you already know my name.”

“Aye. Alistair told me what you did. I… thank you,” the girl’s cheeks coloured. They were already rosy with the cold but it seemed she was not used to having to thank anyone for anything. “I’d be dead without you. When this is all over and my family’s lands are restored to me and my brother, I’ll see you properly rewarded,” she offered, her voice genuine and her grey-green eyes wide, but Alex didn’t want her charity.

“I did what I had to.” She shrugged, toying with the corner of her shawl. “Nothing more. You were lucky.”

Isobel nodded quietly. They began to walk back to the Warden’s fire, Isobel’s hound keeping pace. Alex noticed he wore a harness now, a heavily studded thing of coarse leather and loops. Isobel had hold of a handle by his collar, and he seemed to be supporting her weight. Alex smiled. It would be good to have a friend that loyal. 

“Your Mabari – how long have you had him?”

Isobel smiled brightly as soon as Alex asked. Fereldens, Alex thought with an internal grin. “He was a gift for my sixteenth birthday, from Father. He bought one back from a specialist breeder in Amaranthine. Bran’s a seventh generation specially trained war-dog, pure Mabari through and through. His lineage was selected for their loyalty, resilience and intelligence,” she absently scratched at his ears. “So I guess I’ve had him five years now. Since he was a pup.”

Alex eyed the dog. “He doesn’t like Alistair,”

Isobel laughed. “No. He doesn’t like men, really. Especially not men in armour,”

“That’s a good thing for a war-dog to be wary of,”

“Indeed,” 

They walked in silence the rest of the way. It was a sunny morning, though the blue skies did nothing for the warmth. Ostagar was a bitter place, with sharp winds, damp air and cold, hard ground. Alex realised, rather suddenly, that she would fight her first battle tonight. She’d killed men before, on the run or in dark alleys or in small packs, but never… never around this many people. And she’d always avoided using her magic. She didn’t even carry a staff. Isobel was talking about her dog again but Alex wasn’t listening. She was suddenly filled with butterflies. No staff. No real combat experience. She wasn’t even sure if she knew any useful spells. 

“I see you two have made friends,” called a voice from by the fire, and as Alex was bought back to the present once more she found Alistair grinning their way, a frypan full of bacon in one hand and a fork in the other. He followed Alex’s sightline and looked down at the pan. “What? A man’s got to eat breakfast,”

“But where’d you get the bacon, you ass? Thanks for sharing,” she darted forward and stole a rasher, so hot it burnt her fingers. Reflexively she issued a tiny burst of magic, the icy type, cooling the bacon to edible temperature. She shoved the whole thing in her mouth at once. She regretted doing that almost instantly. Isobel was laughing.

“Hey! I… won that bacon!”

“You won it?” Alex choked out once she’d managed her mouthful and swallowed it rather uncomfortably. 

“Soldiers were dicing for rations. The cook wanted in and he bet a side of bacon against my sword. I won.” Alistair beamed, moving the meat around in the pan before sticking it back on top of the coals. 

Alex laughed, and Isobel with her. “What would you have done in battle without your sword, Templar?” she smirked. 

“Well, I could have… uhm… waved this fork around threateningly? I hear farmers use forks to chase off village idiots or something, right?”

“That’s pitchforks,” Isobel chimed in as she tenderly folded herself into a sitting position by the fire. 

“Ah. Well. My winning smile and the scent of bacon would lull anyone into a false sense of security. And then I could stab them with my itty bitty fork.”

“You are the very picture of a practised warrior, Alistair. Please, you’ll have to tell me more about your remarkable tactics some time,” Isobel called dryly from her spot by the fire. Bran had flopped down beside her and was enjoying a tummy rub. 

Alex took a seat on a log, her lips curving into a smile – no smirk, no wry smile that foretold some mischievous plan, but a smile of genuine contentedness. Alistair sat beside her, his knee bumped against hers with a plate of bacon for them both to share. Isobel was helping herself and feeding the rind to Bran. There would be a battle tonight, but if these two were by her side, she would have nothing to fear. It was funny how fast friendships formed when free.


End file.
